Didn't Asimov write about "micro-piles" in The Martian Way?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Toshiba has [allegedly] developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks.

Seen via talheres

[Developed appears to mean "have a design but not an actual reactor]

[200 kW seems a bit powerful for a city block, at least one with homes on it. The average American household uses about 11,000 kW-hrs a year, according to the first site I found, which if I've done the math right is about 1300 Watts. 200 kW would power about 150 households. Looking at it another way, assuming three people per household, you'd need about 450 of these for Kitchener and once the system was mature, you'd be replacing about a dozen a year on average (One hopes that it doesn't work out so that the replacement rate is nearly zero until about 40 years after the reactors showed up, at which point it zooms up to nearly 100%)]

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a very excellent idea, as long as the design is like those of the pebble-bed reactors, where even a total coolant failure cannot result in a meltdown. OTOH, if the design is not as safe as that, then even if people use these things, they'll stop the first time one of them spews all manner of radiation around the vicinity. I'd love to see more nuclear power, as long as it's safe, well-designed, nuclear power.

In other news, solar isn't doing badly either, with $1 a watt solar power now being manufactured. Of course, I don't know how environmentally safe the manufacturing process is for the cells, so nuclear might be a considerably better option.

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Can you buy those $1/watt solar panels?

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

you jest. they claim they're selling only to "select wholesalers" or somesuch. this isn't too unreasonable, but one might think they would name them, so that retail customers would know who to buy from. they mention selling a 1 megawatt plant, but oddly don't say the selling price. equally oddly, they won't give out spec sheets except under non-disclosure arrangements. color me skeptical.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Apparently, based on what someone who seems to know what they were talking about, there are series problems with the manufacture of the panels, starting with the fact that they're basically hand-crafted, with a ton of wastage in order to make functional units. They can make one-offs, but large scale manufacturing is out of the question.